


Cherrymint

by mitzvah (Melting)



Series: (you still are a kid) [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Meditation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 11:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4605417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melting/pseuds/mitzvah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monk Gyatso and his pupil meditate on reincarnation, but when Aang recalls Gyatso's friendship with Roku, the young avatar is overwhelmed with grief.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>The (you still are a kid)!Verse is a canon-divergent AU in which Aang frequently and unintentionally recalls memories from his past lives, to the extent that sometimes he loses his sense of self.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cherrymint

**Author's Note:**

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The early morning air is cool like the taste of cherrymint tea over ice, and the taste of it reminds the young monk of spring in the north of the Earth Kingdom, this vista of forested mountains dotted with sparse fields of pink cherrymint flowers, children chaining the stems and bestowing upon the Avatar the gift of a crown of flowers.  The young monk breaches the sunrise-silence to tell this memory to his elder, breaking his meditative pose and relaxing against the stone wall where they are perched.  “Monk Gyatso,” says Aang, “have you ever tasted cherrymint tea?”

Gyatso rests his hands on his knees and feels the morning breeze on his face and through the fabric of his robes.  He imagines what the tea might taste like, and acknowledges the astute comparison to this morning breeze, but he has never tasted it himself.

Technically, neither has Aang.

And that is why they have spent the last few hours meditating together, mentor and pupil, atop one of the towers of the southern air temple.  Listening to nothing but the sound of their own breathing, and the drowsy calls of flying lemurs far below.  When Aang, a few days ago, began recalling the memories of Avatar Kyoshi… just faint flickers of images, the taste of cherrymint tea… Gyatso invited the boy to meditate on these memories, on what it meant to be the reincarnation of the Avatar’s spirit.

“As you grow older, Aang, and enter the Avatar State more frequently, the memories and experiences of your past lives will merge with that of your own.”

A moment passes, and the young monk pulls his knees to his chest, then breathes deeply.   “I know. I understand.” But his bright eyes, cool and grey as the sky at dawn, seem pensive, anxious. 

“Are you worried that it will be hard to maintain a sense of your personal identity?”

The young monk rubs his temple thoughtfully, then his fingers drift to trace the year-old tattoos on his forehead.  As if checking if he was still himself.  Still Aang.  “Yes.”

Gyatso breathes deeply, and a shiver runs through him. “My friend, Avatar Roku… late in his life, he told me that he didn’t think of himself as ‘Roku, who happens to be the Avatar,’ but rather as ‘the Avatar, who happens to be Roku.’  He found that he was more comfortable, sometimes, thinking of himself as the singularity of all of his past lives, rather than tenuously holding onto his independent, mortal self.”

The young monk covers his face.  “I just want to be a kid.”

“It’s your right to decide when to be Aang, and when to be the Avatar.  You can be young while you are young.  No one will stop you.”

The young monk sighs heavily, and the rising sun reflects in his eyes.   “You don’t understand,” he says.  Not defensively, but somberly.  As if he’d hoped Gyatso would understand, but the old monk simply couldn’t.

“I may not understand your burden, but I do understand the burden of age.  I can’t imagine how heavy that might feel on such a young man’s shoulders.”

The young monk is crying.  “It’s v-very difficult to speak to you.”

Gyatso’s chest tightens sympathetically, and he reaches out to place his hand on his charge’s shoulder.  The young monk turns frigid under his touch, but he doesn’t move.  Gyatso is surprised at how heartbroken his own voice sounds when he asks, “ _Why?”_

“Because… because… you were his _dear friend._ And I can feel-” the young monk’s voice cracks, “his _grief,_ his grief inside of me… and all he wants to do… is reach out and hold your hand again.  But if he does…” Aang’s fingers remove Gyatso’s hand from his shoulder, and he holds the elder’s palm with both hands, shaking, pressing his tear-stained cheek to his mentor’s fingers, “the hands are marked with the arrows.  And – and he’ll… he’ll never be able to see you again as himself.  He’s _grieving,_ Gyatso, I’m…”

Gyatso pulls Aang into his arms, holding the boy as he becomes hysterical.  He screams, sobbing at the rising sun, and Gyatso holds him tight and, feeling hollow, thinks of Roku.

Aang’s screams echo against the mountains surrounding the southern air temple.  The flying lemurs have gone silent.


End file.
